New tankers for Arctic field

The shipping company, Russia’s biggest, this week announced a credit facility agreement with Sberbank over the three Arctic shuttle tankers. The deal has a 14-year time frame and will cover the construction of the ships, a press release from the company reads.

The vessels will have a deadweight of 45,000 tons and operate in the shallow waters of the Ob Bay. They will have special ice protection and operate in shuttle to and from a terminal tanker in Murmansk.

Sovcomflot representatives confirm that the three new tankers are already under construction at the Samsung Heavy Industries yard. The first will be delivered in 2016, newspaper Vedomosti reports.

The Novy Port project is with its about 250 million tons of oil one of the biggest oil fields in the Yamal Peninsula. It is operated by Gazprom Neft and will have an annual production of five million tons. The project includes the construction of a terminal port at Cape Kamenny on the Yamal coast.

Already in 2016, the project will deliver two million tons of oil for exports. The shipments will be sent both westwards to EU markets and eastwards along the Northern Sea Route.

Part of the project is the laying of a 10,5 km long pipeline from the Yamal coast to an offshore terminal in the Ob Bay. That terminal will be linked with another 105 pipeline stretching towards the Novoportovskoye oil field in the peninsula.